Blue Bird has been contracted to supply a fleet of 60 electric school buses for Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) in Florida, marking the largest purchase to date for Blue Bird’s electric school buses.
With this order, BCPS is replacing part of its diesel fleet with Blue Bird’s fully electric Vision buses through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Electric School Bus Project.
To support this purchase, BCPS received almost 15 million USD in funding from Florida’s Diesel Emissions Mitigation Program.
BCPS Superintendent Earlean Smiley said:Broward County Public Schools is excited to be the first school district in South Florida to pilot the use of electric buses in lowering emissions from our bus flee. This project has been in development for several years, and we’re thankful to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Power & Light for providing the essential funding and infrastructure to make it possible.
Each Vision vehicle can carry 72 students for up to 120 miles on a single charge. They then take between three to eight hours to recharge depending on the charging infrastructure used.
The charging infrastructure for this fleet will be provided by Florida Power & Light Company, which is the largest power utility in the state.
All Blue Bird electric buses come standard with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capability, enabling BCPS to return stored energy back to the grid to balance demands on the grid and lower the overall cost of the electric school bus fleet.
Matthew Stevenson, President and CEO of Blue Bird Corporation said:Zero-emission transportation means cleaner air to breathe. We have served Broward Schools for more than 30 years. We could not be more pleased to help the school district transition to electric buses and clean student transportation.
